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TOM ROGERSON, director of family wealth services at BNY Mellon Wealth Management in Boston, keeps a copy of a handwritten, 10-page document on his desk. When he first saw it, he says, it made him weep.

The letter, from a father to his son, is nearly 25 years old. It describes the impact of his conversion to Christianity late in life, and outlines his hopes for his son.

"That was my first experience, before I knew the term," Rogerson says. "But it turns out this was an ethical will. It is a great example of what an ethical will is designed to do."

Unlike a "living will" or "last will and testament," an ethical will isn't a legally binding document. It could be a letter—ranging from half a page to a bound book—or a video recording. There are no rules governing what goes into it, or when the contents should be shared with the heirs, but the idea behind it is simple: Convey values, not valuables. (See an example below.)

ETHICAL WILLS have been around for hundreds of years. "The impulse to communicate what we think is important to those we love is as old as the human race," says Susan Turnbull, founder and principal of Personal Legacy Advisors, a firm that advocates nonbinding personal-legacy documents as a component of estate and philanthropic planning.

"But it was 12th-century Jewish men who began to formalize an oral tradition into a written one. The earliest medieval documents were personal treatises on how to live an ethical life, written from father to son," she says. Only in the last decade or so, however, has the term "ethical will" entered the parlance of estate planning.

Turnbull, a writer, stumbled on the concept in 2001. Needing a break from a story she was working on, she picked up the local newspaper lying on her desk and found mention of an ethical will buried in a column.

"What struck me was that it was the missing piece of estate planning," she says. "A will is written in formal legalese that is very limited in scope. It has no personality, and there is no life or warmth in it. Love and affection and gratitude may be implied by the document, but are never stated."

"An ethical will takes a 30,000-foot view of your life," Turnbull adds, "and tries to capture the essence of what has been important to you, and the lasting messages you want to leave."

This sense that something was missing in the estate-planning process led one successful financial-services entrepreneur to Turnbull's firm as a customer. The 48-year-old father of three worked together with her for a year on the message he wanted to leave with his children—"the things that you learned through the school of hard knocks," as he puts it. The result is an 11-page document that he says is much more than a memoir. But he cautions that the process requires time, energy and commitment.

The simple idea behind an ethical will: Convey values, not valuables.

"The ethical will is written to help other people, for the benefit of the heirs, but the process the author goes through to create it is as valuable as the document itself," Turnbull says. "The author has the opportunity to pause and reflect on his life in ways he might otherwise never do."

LINDA BEERMAN, chief fiduciary and risk officer at Atlantic Trust, a private wealth-management firm, and manager of its wealth strategies group, says ethical wills are an important part of helping prepare the next generation to become "good stewards" of the family wealth.

"Typically these are private expressions of love, of what the owner of the wealth wants it to mean for the next generations," she says. "It's an effort to pass down not just the money, but all of the drivers [of the] creator of the wealth, and what he or she wishes the legacy to be for the family."

BNY Mellon's Rogerson, who focuses on the steps families should take to ensure their heirs understand their parents' intentions, wastes no time introducing the idea.

"Even at the first meeting I would tell the children: 'I'm going to encourage your parents to write down, to really try and warehouse as much insight and wisdom as they can about your family.' And then separately I would encourage the children to build the process of learning from each other.…"

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, he says, because research suggests internal strife is the main reason families lose their wealth relatively quickly.

Ken Kilday, a wealth manager with USAA, a financial-services company that provides insurance, banking, investment and retirement services to the U.S. military and their families, says ethical wills, or what he calls "letters of instruction," are a standard part of the firm's advice.

"My experience in wealth management is that, for most people, the goal was never just to accumulate a lot of assets," says Kilday, who handles the financial affairs for 230 families representing about $540 million in assets under management. "The ethical will is a great way to tie it all together. It answers the question: What is this all for? With nearly every family there is a deeply emotional personal story behind the accumulation of the wealth."

Creating Your Own Ethical Will

Susan Turnbull, founder and principal of Personal Legacy Advisors, a firm that advocates non-binding personal legacy documents as a component of estate and philanthropic planning, offers the following tips:

START TODAY

If you were not here tomorrow, what is the most important thing you would not want left unsaid? It might be a simple as saying, "thank you" in your own words. Write it down – you've begun.

RELAX AND BE YOURSELF

You are not trying to write for the Pulitzer Prize. What you create is a gift of yourself, made for those you love, not for an imaginary panel passing judgment on your life or your writing.

ASK YOURSELF

What do I want to make sure my loved ones know and have in writing? What messages, feelings and information do I want to endure beyond my life?

CONSIDER IT A WORK IN PROGRESS

Start small and add to it over time if you wish. It's natural to expect that what seems most important to share might grow and change as you and your audience age.

BE CAREFUL, BE LOVING

The reach of your words is unknowable.

MAKE IT EASY TO FIND

Keep it in an accessible file, so you can add to it effortlessly. Keep it with your legal papers or refer to where it can be found. Make sure your words find their intended audience.

CONSIDER SHARING IT DURING YOUR LIFETIME

Even as you know you may augment or change your document over time, think of the rewards of creating a monologue that will promote dialogue.

Below, from Susan Turnbull of Personal Legacy Advisors, is an example of a brief contemporary ethical will:

Dear Ones,

I fully expect that I will live for a very long time, to see you well into adulthood and to share your future with you. There is much to look forward to, and I am planning on being part of all the adventures and all the challenges and all the joys. But if for some reason I am not, the most important thing you need to know is how much my love for you created the person that you will remember as me. I made you, but you made me, too. I am so proud of you and so grateful to you. When the time comes, and none of us can answer the question of when that will be, you need to know that without a doubt, I was fulfilled in my life. I have had a wonderful life and I don't want you to mourn me–maybe a little, but not too long! Carry me forward by recreating the net that I was for you and be it for others. Carry me forward in your kitchen with our favorite coffee cake, muffins and pie, warm from the oven and made for your own delectable pleasure, or for those you care about. Carry me forward with an optimistic outlook and tenacious devotion to what you know is best. Carry me forward and I will be with you always.